Was anyone else looking for a lightning bolt to shoot out of the sky when the blasphemer in chief waved the Holy Bible for a photo op in front of a Washington, D.C., church after using the military to disperse a crowd protesting the murder of George Floyd?
At the same moment President Donald Trump expressed his support Monday for peaceful protesters, the liar in chief was waiting on armed soldiers to move in on nonviolent demonstrators, using tear gas and rubber bullets to clear a path so Trump could walk to a house of worship where he wasn’t invited, where he didn’t even say a prayer.
“All Americans were rightly sickened and revolted by the brutal death of George Floyd,” Trump said at a Rose Garden news conference, at which the boom of flash grenades could be heard in the distance,
“My administration is fully committed that, for George and his family, justice will be served. He will not have died in vain. But we cannot allow the righteous cries and peaceful protesters to be drowned out by an angry mob. The biggest victims of the rioting are peace-loving citizens in our poorest communities, and as their president, I will fight to keep them safe. I will fight to protect you. I am your president of law and order, and an ally of all peaceful protesters.
Meanwhile, across the street in Lafayette Park, military police used tools of war to clear peaceful protesters before Trump made his faithless pilgrimage to St. John’s Episcopal Church.
“Let me be clear: The president just used a Bible, the most sacred text of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and one of the churches of my diocese without permission as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and everything that our churches stand for,” Episcopal Diocese of Washington Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde told CNN. “And to do so, he sanctioned the use of tear gas by police officers in riot gear to clear the churchyard. I am outraged.”
So, it isn’t enough that Trump has mocked women, the disabled, Muslims, Mexicans, black people, black athletes, immigrants and immigrants from s—- thole countries.
He has to mock God, too.
He is not the first.
The Bible, which Trump pretends to revere so much, is filled with examples of shortsighted hypocrites whose fake adoration put them on a path to destruction.
“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked,” it says somewhere in that Bible that Trump was thumping.
“A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people.”
All people. Not just the immigrants from countries you like. Not just millionaires and billionaires with set-aside tax breaks. Not just the “very fine people” at a white supremacist rally.
All people.
What kind of people? People like this, to name a few:
Eric Garner, Laquan McDonald, Akai Gurley, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray, Billy Ray Davis, Alonzo Smith, Walter Scott, Trayvon Martin, La’Vante Biggs, Alton Sterling, Alteria Woods, Botham Jean, Anthony Ashford, Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Philandro Castile, Kevin Hicks, Terrill Thomas, Mary Truxillo, Eric Reason, Breonna Taylor, Ronell Foster, Jamar Clark, Matthew Ajibade, Junior Prosper, Quintonio Legrier, Dyzhawn Perkins, Alexia Christian, Mya Hall, Dominique Clayton, Nathaniel Harris Pickett, Bettie Jones.
And George Floyd.
Leonard Greene is a reporter and columnist for the New York Daily News.